The Irish Housewives Association had dealt with some serious political accusations in the early ’50s. Though founded as a political pressure group to represent the needs of married Irish women, on 12 April 1952 the Roscommon Herald suggested that the IHA had ‘always been used as a medium of expression by Marxists and Communists’. Though the Roscommon Herald printed an apology in its 15 August 1953 issue, many suspected that the IHA was a front for red political agitation. In her book A link in the chain, Hilda Tweedy—the eventual chairwoman of the IHA—wrote that these allegations were extremely disruptive and had brought a noticeably combative group of new women to IHA meetings. As a result, the central committee voted to close the group to new members in January 1953, which did not allay distrust.
